No Part of You Ever Truly Dies
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does often rhyme.” — Mark Twain
It’s Fall here in Oakland.
Where the leaves only sort of fall and the morning fog gets heavy. The darker days have me craving cozy: the sweatshirts, the Earl Gray. The Halloween themes at Target and the pumpkin spice lattes remind me of the sweet bitterness of decay. I want to hibernate, curl up, and cuddle with my cat.
As this part of the Earth receives less of its energy from the sun, Fall becomes the season of going inward. Slumber. Some spiritual gurus will talk about this season as a sort of death.
I’m thinking now of a metaphor a mentor of mine often likes to throw around when it comes to our own journeys and personal healing (I’m paraphrasing):
Like the trees that shed their leaves in the fall to make room for the new in the spring, we, too, go through cycles of shedding parts of ourselves that are no longer serving us in order to step into who we truly are.
I used to really align with this idea.
Sometimes I look back at old photos of myself from elementary school to college and connect to the negative aspects of who I was back then: Highly depreciating, overly accommodating, ugly and awkward-feeling. It amazes me that carried myself in those ways — that I didn’t value myself more. And I’m so grateful for the work I put in to build up my self-worth.
After all the journaling, the therapy, the affirmations, and revelations I often feel like I’ve gotten over most of the issues younger me struggled with. That Young Adele is dead. Shed. I am the new-new.
I feel that until she rears her head again. Like recently at the Oakland Pridefest in September.
I was perusing around the booths by myself because I didn’t want to stay long (I had errands to run), and as I watched all of the beautiful queer folx laughing and twerking away, I felt this deep and utter loneliness—like the one I felt in elementary school.
In my head, a surprising voice crept in: “You don’t belong. There’s not a place I belong.” My heart sunk among a sea of my people.
At some point, I walked over to a booth representing the Oakland Roots, a local men’s pro soccer team. The person working there told me that they were starting a women’s soccer team, too.
“Yeah, the Oakland Soul is starting up next fall!”
“Oh, really…?” My heart sank two more leagues. My retired, aspiring-soccer-pro me was screaming:
“That should’ve been me!
They shouldn’t get to play if I can’t anymore.
I don’t want them here.”
I was shocked about all of this surfacing at what seemed to be a meaningless moment.
I had hung up my boots having done a bunch of forgiveness work and written a whole book on reframing my relationship to the sport. I thought I made peace with my retirement because I no longer have that fire to commit to something as demanding as a pro league.
I also spent years with spiritual teachers and therapists working on how to honor my uniqueness and bolster my sense of belonging. And so, I thought I was over all of this!!!! What the hell!?
But when I got home and told my wife, Magdalene, about all of this, she reminded me that my inner teen was talking to me and that she needs care and attention — not logic or reason. Just love. Whatever that looks like for her in this moment.
I then began to reflect on the idea that time is not linear and how we contain multitudes.
This means that even if we “healed” something, it isn’t “cured”. Even if we “shed” a part of ourselves nothing has really gone away. These are just parts of us that no longer occupy the main space of how we see and move through the world.
This made me re-interpret the tree metaphor.
Ever think about what happens to the leaf after it’s shed?
Unless it’s raked up or blown away, it decomposes, becomes one with the soil and the microorganisms beneath it, nourishing and anchoring the very roots of the tree it came from.
And so I would imagine, over time, as the tree absorbs the nutrients and water it needs, a reintegration phase takes place. The old becomes a part of the new. It never truly dies.
And so it has me thinking of the tree of life symbol:
The torus that comprises each human’s electro magnetic field:
And ironically enough, the Oakland Roots logo:
There seems to be this seasonal, cyclical nature to life that keeps us meeting parts of ourselves again and again and again — no matter how much “healing” we’ve done.
The point of the healing work, in my opinion, is to give us greater awareness — a new vantage point — from which to view ourselves from and make choices more in alignment with our Truth. It gives us the opportunity to re-integrate, reclaim, and learn to love ourselves (and others) on a much deeper level.
In my mind, I see our evolutionary journeys and the parallel experiences we move though like this:
History doesn’t repeat. It rhymes. It resonates and with greater awareness we get to create anew.
So, it’s fall.
My body is remembering the years of getting ready for a schools I felt lonely in. Seasons of prepping, getting excited for intense soccer seasons. I figured Young Adele wanted to play with like-company.
Last week, we played pick up soccer with some new queer friends at the park. Afterward some of us hung out to eat leftover chocolate cake a family having a party nearby didn’t want to toss away.
With frosting all over my fingers, and mud caked on my cleats, I could confidently say, it was a happy re-birth day to the kid that never died.
